Main menu

Post navigation

Resolution of the contradictions: Weston Price vs. modern medical science

“Personal nutrient sufficiency” is defined operationally as that level of nutritional quality required for the body to remain free of degenerative disease until at least sixty five years of age, genetics permitting.

A sedentary person who drinks too heavily, for example, may not be able to achieve nutrient sufficiency, even with nutritious food, without consuming many more calories than is healthy. But a person with the average set of genes, who drinks the average amount, snacks the average amount, consumes the average level of calories, and is subject to the average amount of stress should be able to achieve nutrient sufficiency at a reasonable calorie level.

Meals “rich” in animal fat, cholesterol, and animal protein can be harmful to health -though not as much as heavy drinking- if sufficient nutrition is not achieved. With nutrient sufficiency, by definition, they are not harmful to health. This is the resolution of the contradictory theses of Weston Price and modern medical science. Both are right. Weston Price’s “primitives” -such as the Native Americans of the Great Plains, whose diet was almost exclusively meat from the whole animal, including cholesterol-rich liver- were nutrient sufficient (evidence: excellent oral/dental health with poor dental hygiene) and thus could eat high protein/high cholesterol/high fat meals with impunity, while moderns are mostly nutrient insufficient (by my hypothetical estimate about 2/3rds – the same percentage of Americans who will die from complications of degenerate disease). Consistent with this are the observations that moderns have so-so dental health even with good dental hygiene, and moderns suffer medical consequences from eating too much red meat, and even too much salt (and second hand smoke, if doctors are to be believed).

In reality, the problem with moderns -aside from being undisciplined, molly-coddled and weak- is a diet with too many calories (for our level of inactivity) and about a pound too few vegetables, which makes the shortfall in nutrient sufficiency, which in turn underpowers the body’s “consumables” in its attempts to deal with the consequences of the standard American diet and self-induced stressful lifestyle.

With the addition of a pound of vegetables (at least half dark green leafy) and even with the slight increase in calories from the vegetables, I would predict noticeable improvement in health in the average American. There is no need to give up red meat!